William Gibson: Technology is the driver and ideology is an attempt to steer

Socrates /

Posted on: April 8, 2012 / Last Modified: September 6, 2022

William Gibson, the iconic sci fi author who coined the term cyberspace – i.e. the “mass consensual hallucination” of computer networks, talks about a wide variety of topics such as the occupy movement, technology, the Internet, the growth of cities, the relationship between drugs and creativity, and having a time-machine. While Gibson does not talk directly about his newest collection of essays titled Distrust That Particular Flavor, during the 12 minutes of the interview he still focuses almost entirely on the present rather than the future.

My two favorite quotes from William Gibson’s interview:

“Technology invariably trumps ideology. And I am inclined to think that history increasingly suggests that human social change is more directly driven by technology than by ideology. I think we develop ideologies in an attempt to cope with technologies and that in fact we’ve been doing that all along. Technology is knowing how to grow, harvest and store cereals without which you can’t really do a city. Technology is knowing how to build efficient sewage infrastructure without which you can’t build a slightly larger city. So I think of technologies as the drivers and ideologies as an attempt to steer.”

“Life is a succession of altered states.”

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